The preceding cut is a restoration of one of the largest of these temples. Here we see a circle twelve hundred feet in diameter, of upright stones, guarded by both a ditch and embankment. From the two openings in the embankment formerly extended two long winding avenues of stone. Between them rises Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in Great Britain, being one hundred and thirty feet high. The area of the large inclosure was about twenty-eight and a half acres. This was a temple of no inconsiderable size. It was, of course in ruins when the earliest account of it was written, and we can only speculate as to the lapse of time since it was venerated as a place of worship.
Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, is a better known ruin, though not on as large a scale as at Avebury. The cut gives us a restoration of it. The outer circle of standing stones is one hundred feet in diameter, and when entire consisted of one hundred stones. These are of sandstone, and were obtained in the vicinity. A course of stone was laid along the top. We notice within a smaller circle of stone. The material of these stones is such that we know they must have come from a distance. Mr. James tells us that they are erratic—that is, bowlders brought from the North of Scotland by the glaciers—and that others of the same kind are still to be seen lying around the country.29 But the more common opinion is that they were brought there by the people from a distance, perhaps Cornwall or the Channel Islands. If this be true, it is evidence of a strong religious feeling, and a peculiar value must have been attached to the material, since for any ordinary monument the stones in the neighborhood would have sufficed. Still nearer the center were five groups of three great stones each, and immediately within these a horseshoe of smaller stones. Finally, near the head of the horseshoe, a great slab of sandstone is supposed to have served for an altar. The date of the two structures just described has been a matter of some dispute.
It is worthy of notice that in the immediate neighborhood of both of them are found a great number of barrows of the Bronze Age. Over three hundred were erected in the neighborhood of the latter. In the opinion of many this fixes their date in the Bronze Age. Stonehenge, in its ruined state, has formed the subject of no little speculation. Modern explorers, in connecting it with the Bronze Age, have not dispelled from it the enchantment of mystery. We must ever wonder as to the nature of the rites there observed. Our questionings meet with but feeble response; for though we have learned somewhat of past times, it is comparatively but little. Ruined columns, crumbling burial mounds, and remains of stone and bronze will always be surrounded with more or less mystery—a striking illustration that science is able to dispel but little of the darkness which unnumbered years have thrown around the culture of the past.
REFERENCES
- The manuscript of this chapter was submitted to Prof. Chas. Rau, of the Smithsonian Institution for criticism.
- Brace’s “Races of the Old World,” p. 60.
- Brace’s “Races of the Old World,” p. 61.
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 343.
- “One mass estimated to weigh two hundred tons.” Dana’s “Manual of Mineralogy,” p. 291.
- Evans’s “Ancient Bronze Implements,” p. 2.
- Rau’s “Anthropological Subjects,” p. 89. In his preface to this collection he asserts his belief, that “former inhabitants of North America, notwithstanding all assertions to the contrary, were unacquainted with the art of melting copper.” Ibid., vii.
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 401.
- “Dawn of History,” p. 367.
- For an excellent discussion of this subject, about which there is yet much uncertainty, we would refer the reader to Evans’s “Ancient Bronze Implements,” chap. xxii.
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 355.
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 350.
- “Prehistoric Times,” p. 34.
- “Early Man in Britain,” p. 351.
- Figuier’s “Primitive Man,” p. 255.
- Rau’s “Early Man in Europe,” p. 135, and note.
- Lubbock’s “Prehistoric Times,” p. 39.
- Morgan’s “Ancient Society,” pp. 119, 120.
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Europe,” p. 449.
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 383.
- Lubbock’s “Prehistoric Times,” p. 157.
- Lubbock’s “Prehistoric Times,” p. 74.
- A.D., 995-1035.
- Ferguson’s “Rude Stone Monuments.”
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 367.
- Figuier’s “Primitive Man,” p. 283.
- Ferguson’s “Rude Stone Monuments.”
- Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 377.
- James’s “Stonehenge,” p. 3.